The invention disclosed herein relates to a new method and apparatus for enhancing the performance of a Parallel Implementation of Combinatorial Optimization (PICO) system which is referred to in assignee's prior application Ser. No. 07/478324, filed Dec. 2, 1990, now abandoned, as a Generalized Combinatorial Optimization Shell (GCOS). The prior application is directed toward the use of a multiple processor method and system to solve graph search or combinatorial optimization problems. The present invention is a method and apparatus to enhance the performance of a multiprocessor network wherein node generation, upper and lower bound or bound generation, bound evaluation and node pruning commands from the user are implemented into the processor network through the intermediacy of the PICO system and hardware.